Conclusion

I left Vietnam when I was eighteen years old. During the year that I was there, I had changed-- both physically as well as emotionally. When I was at home, my mother used to ask me when I was going to become a man. I can now answer her question better than I ever thought possible. I truly had grown from a boy to a man. Now that I am out of Vietnam, of course I can look back on my actions and think that they were not correct. People look back on historical events all the time and they judge people for their actions. Take the Johnstown Flood for example. There was a dam that broke and killed 2,209 people in Johnstown. Well, there was a club that happened to own the land that the dam was on and that club happened to have a president. The state of Pennsylvania wanted to sue the president of the club for 2,209 counts of negligent homicide. There were problems with the dam but the owner did nothing about them. However, no one had any complaints about the condition of the dam until it broke. Of course people could look back and blame the owner of the dam for the problems because they needed someone to blame. That is what happens with history all the time—people get judged and blamed by people who don’t understand conditions at the time. People cannot make decisions if they are not in the same environment.

I guess that also means that I should not look back and judge my actions while fighting in the war. I have decided that what I did is now in the past so there is nothing I can do to change it. The other day I was with my granddaughter Lia and she wanted me to watch a movie with her (her and her Disney princesses) and I denied her request because I was reminiscing about Vietnam and I told her I was busy. That struck home for me after i realized that I had ignored what really mattered in order to think about something that I could do nothing to change—once I had realized what I had done, I no longer cared what happened in Vietnam. I am not helping myself by continuing to look in the past. I need to live in the present. All I want is my family because that is all I have left when I take everything into consideration. I have decided to stop thinking constantly about Vietnam and take some time for my family. This is why I have decided to end this blog. The memories that I write here remain the only link between my life now and my life then. Without it I hope to, not forget my memories, but to file them away for later use. This blog has given me a chance to document most of those memories so that I could remove the worst ones from my head. In the words of the great General Douglas MacArthur, “this is my final roll call with you.” Thank you for growing alongside me and I hope that this has provided insight to an issue that continues to plague the minds of Vietnam War veterans.

Monday, December 28

A question comes to my mind every time I think of the Vietnam War:

Was it justified?

Three small words that can alter a man’s thinking forever. When I was fighting in the war, I obviously thought it was justified because if I did not think that it was justified, I would have been killing people in cold blood. Or at least, I trusted my government enough that I thought that they had a justification for the war. I thought that Lyndon B. Johnson had a very specific reason to be in Vietnam. Obviously, I thought wrong.

After the war ended I talked with a few of the guys in my unit. We all came to the exact same conclusion: Vietnam was not the right place to be at the time. We didn’t know who to shoot and who to help because we had no idea who was Vietcong and who was not. Most of the time, we guessed and our guesses cost many innocent people their lives. If we had to GUESS who was the enemy, we could not effectively fight a war. There weren’t signs that said, “This guy is one of the bad guys. You have to kill him.” And we also didn’t know what we were fighting for—most of us had no idea why we were there. I know that we were trying to stop Communism from spreading into Vietnam and that the Northerners and the Southerners were mad at each other. But how can you stop an IDEA? Like Thomas Paine said before the American Revolution, "They cannot conquer an idea with an army." What if the people truly wanted Communism because they believed that they could create and live out the perfect society that Karl Marx philosophized about. Who were we to say that the utopia that Marx created in his mind could not have existed in Vietnam at that time? And in the end, we didn’t even win the war. We didn’t lose either but we didn’t win. There are still Communist parties in Vietnam to this day. I guess we could not stop the idea enough for it to leave the minds of the people. Maybe it is none of our business what Vietnam was doing at the time. Maybe we were meddling in things that need not have been meddled in.

This war cost the United States 60,000 of its bravest men. Those men that I talked about in my last post—those were the men that gave their lives for their country and their names are now displayed on the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC. There were 350,000 casualties. That seems like a huge price to pay for a war that we should not have been involved in anyway. 60,000—an enormous number that now means so much to anyone who lost a loved one in Vietnam. Those men didn’t ask to die. I realize that as soon as they signed up, they risked their lives for this country but they trusted the government (just as I did) enough to know exactly what to do and when to do it. Who are we without a government that knows what it is doing? I pray for each and every one of those men because I know that the world may not be the same as it is now without their sacrifice.

It’s hard to know exactly what to do at exactly the right time, though. I guess I can give the government a little leeway because it has taken us this far. Even though we have some conflicts occasionally, they have led us into the 21^st century. In the case of Vietnam, even though we didn’t know who the enemy was, we did what we had to do. And I am okay with that. I sleep at night knowing that I did what I had to do each and every day in Vietnam. And even though America made a mistake, we can learn from our mistakes. That is what someone is supposed to do after making a mistake—learn from it. Now if we don’t change our ideas and learn from the mistakes, that will be where the problem arises. Although the Vietnam War was not justified by the United States government, in my mind, I have created a justification for it.

Anyway, I want to make it clear that I do not support war-- no sane person could support the intentional murder of other people. I support the MEN fighting in the wars.

Sunday, December 27

Hero—a word that is defined so simply by Daniel Webster as somebody who is admired and looked up to for outstanding qualities or achievements. But it means so much more than that. A hero is someone who is brave even in the face of death. Someone who gave it their all even when they thought there was no longer a reason to give anything. Someone who was scared beyond all imagination but still fought bravely. I saw many heroes during my time in Vietnam who receive almost no recognition for what they have done. Here, I hope to document the heroes that require that small bit of recognition.

The first group of people that come to mind are those who carried stretchers onto the battlefields. They risked their own lives as they sprinted out in the middle of a hail of bullets in order to help their fellow soldiers. Those men were the last hope for the soldiers who had fallen in battle—wounded soldiers were carried out on stretchers so that they could be attended to later in the hospitals. Without the brave men who carried those stretchers, by the time the battle was over, there would not have been enough time to save them in the hospitals. Heroes.

There was one battle where we lost hundreds of men in five minutes. We knew that we had to slow down the fire of the Vietcong if we ever hoped to breach their walls. The only way to start the attack was to sacrifice perhaps an entire regiment of men who would lead it. Only then could we finally attack the Vietcong. We told this story to all of the men and they became scared. There was one group of men who offered to lead the attack. It was regiment 89 and every single one of those men are still heroes in my eyes. When the attack started there were 240 men. When the dust cleared and we were able to see the results of the battle, there were 19 left. Just 19 out of 240 men—that is only 7%. I cannot begin to imagine what was going through their minds as they walked onto that battlefield. I know that they were scared out of their minds. But the thing is that each and every one of those men had a duty that day. Their duty was to sacrifice themselves for the lives of hundreds of their fellow soldiers. Without them, many more innocent civilians would have been killed by the Vietcong. They gave their last breath for their country. Heroes.

Other unspoken heroes were the helicopter pilots. No matter how tough the situation. No matter how late and horrible the weather conditions were. No matter how impossible it was to get to our location. They always came to our rescue. We were in some extremely tough situations and without the helicopter pilots, I don’t think I would have survived at all. Heroes.

There are still hundreds of unsung heroes—brave men who risked their lives every day for their country. Any soldier who fought in the Vietnam War is considered a hero to me. They all gave everything they had even if it led to their deaths. They all showed courage and not just the dictionary definition of the word courage. I’m talking about Aristotle’s definition—that courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the mastering of the fear that exists. I still pray every chance I get for the men, living and dead, who bravely fought each and every day—Heroes.

Adapted from the story of William H. Dabney in Dabney, William H. “The Seige of Khe Sanh.” The Soldiers’ Story. Ed. Ron Steinman. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2002. 83-89. Book.

Monday, December 14

Semper Fi. I know everyone has heard it at least once in their lives. But most people have no idea what it truly means. Technically, it’s short for Semper Fidelis, which means, in Latin, “Always Faithful.” There have been many different interpretations of what this phrase really means. I was watching a television show the other day and the girl said that it meant “you rat, you fry” because if you ratted out your men, you were done for. Without the trust of the other men, there was no reason to fight. By the way, the verb “to rat” means to betray someone, such as the men that I fought with. “Ratting” is an unforgivable offense.

In my own opinion, I have created a different meaning for the phrase. with the case of warfare, it means that you were always faithful to your fellow soldiers. Without those men standing next to me, I would not have survived in Vietnam. I am still forever in the debt of the men who fought with me.

Through the knowledge that they were always there for me, I would lay down my life for them. I would have sacrificed anything to make sure that they survived the war. I remember one battle, there was a guy next to me who had pictures of his family and he always held them in his pocket. To him, I was a complete stranger, but he showed me the pictures anyway. It was a Christmas picture of his wife with his three kids. He told me all of their names. He had two daughters named Lia and Ariana—they were three and four years old, respectively. He also had an infant son named Benjamin. His son was born the day after he deployed so he has never seen his own son.

During the battle, he must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time because I never saw him again. He started by fighting next to me, then he got an idea—I could see a little light bulb go off in his head. He ran to the Commander to tell him his idea. I heard later that he had been hit by a mortar. His brilliant strategy never reached the Commander.

I still carry that story with me-- even after all these years. I told my son that story as soon as he was old enough just to get it off my chest. It hit him so powerfully that he named all of his children after that man’s children.

My biggest regret from the entire war was not the murder of innocent people. Of course that still nags at me, but my biggest regret is that I never asked that man his name. I will never know the name of the man that kept me motivated during my last months at war. When I learned of his death, I was horrified. I wish more than anything that I could have saved him. Even though I never knew his name, I feel like I could have done something to avoid his death. Maybe if I had gone with him to tell the Commander his new idea, we would have avoided the mortar attack. Maybe… maybe… maybe…

There is something else that Semper Fi means—it means that a soldier has to fight so that he was not thought of as a coward. We had to fight so that the men next to us didn’t think we were scared. I have another quote from my hero John Wayne “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway” and it explains the meaning of true courage. John Wayne thought that courage was not that a man was NOT afraid, but that even though he was scared, he was still brave when he had to be. In that sense, our men were courageous. Each and every one of us was scared for our lives and we still fought bravely. I owe everything that I have now to those men fighting with me then during Vietnam.

Adapted from the story of Kevin Macauley in Macauley, Kevin. “The Seige of Khe Sanh.” The Soldiers’ Story. Ed. Ron Steinman. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2002. 105-109. Book.

Sunday, December 13

Benjamin had a history project and he was so excited. He couldn’t wait to get home to tell me. As a sophomore, he was required to write an 8-12 page research paper on anything that he wanted. He decided to write his about the Vietnam War and he wanted me to give him some information so that he would have another primary source. He wanted to know what the most stressful battle was while I was fighting in the war. I thought about it for a while. Hmm, which battle was the most horrible for me? After a moment, the answer came to me… Malai. Yes, I was under the command of Lieutenant Calley. Yes, I was involved in the slaughter of many innocent people. I wondered if I should tell him about it, he is only fifteen. But I concluded that he is old enough to know the truth about the horror of warfare. I do not want him going through his entire life thinking that war is a justified offense—that it is in any way morally correct.

We were told that there were hundreds of VietCong hiding out in the fort of Malai. In the dead of night, we went to the village with the full intent of burning it to the ground. Our orders had been to “systematically eliminate” the VC from the area. In military jargon, that basically meant that we had to execute anyone that we saw in the village. In other words, we were ordered by the government to massacre the entire area. It was known as Operation Phoenix and it was put in place by the CIA.

I will never forget what I saw there during Operation Phoenix. We had to torture some of the Vietnamese to get answers. Our troops had to walk all day and by nightfall, they were tired and cranky. They needed an outlet for their anger and their outlet came out at the expense of the Vietnamese that we captured. We didn’t even know for sure if they were VC because there was no way to know with certainty who was a VC and who was just an innocent Vietnamese civilian. Other civilians that we killed were innocent women and children. We had to—we had to do what it took to protect our country (or so our Commander said). I was not so sure.

There was a man captured by the VC. We heard his screams echo throughout the valley all night. It felt as though his scream penetrated our skin and got into our souls. In the morning, we found what all the screaming was about—he had been skinned alive by the VC. That horror has never left me and I still think about it in my nightmares.

Right in the middle of our invasion, some of our officers changed their minds about what to do in Malai. They now wanted to win over the hearts and minds of the people because the realized how immoral our actions were. But it was too late. We could never take back the things that we had done. One cannot change the past. One can only accept what has happened and move on with his life.

I watched the entire trial for Lieutenant Calley unfold a while ago. The Lieutenant was just following orders. But he should have had a moral compass telling him what to do. He should have followed his gut. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe he was following his gut. Maybe his gut told him that the murder of innocent people was somehow evilly justified He was talking during the trial and he said that the hundreds of dead civilians didn’t bother him after the many years he had been away from Vietnam. There is a quote that I have come to live by that contradicts Lieutenant Calley’s words-- "It has been said that time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but it is never gone." ~Rose Kennedy. When I read this quote, it explained my life completely. I realized that the true soldier never forgets the men he has killed. Their screams never leave me. If Calley really had a moral decision-making ability, he would still think about the men he killed. He would never be able to forget but obviously, he has forgotten. I also realize that it is normal for the wounds to never disappear completely—it is the only way the mind can stay sane and a person can learn from his or her mistakes.

Adapted from the story of Lieutenant Calley in Sack, John. Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story. New York: Viking Press Inc., 1971. Book.

Tuesday, December 8

Today, I went to Starbucks and got a coffee… black, of course. As I was sitting, waiting for my order, I saw a man in uniform walk in. I was in my uniform as well so he began to make small talk with me. After introducing himself as Doctor C (his friends jokingly called him “Sir C”), he made a joke about the health care bill “Have you seen the size of that thing? 2,000 sheets later for just one copy and, in 20 years, we will wonder why there are no trees left.” I have actually seen that bill and it is huge. How does someone take the time to read that? And the kicker is that the guys only get about 2 days to read it!

We talked a little more about politics and then the inevitable subject came up… the Vietnam War. He told me he had served in the war as a medical doctor. His story is one of the most touching I have heard in a long time:

“I saw men who were on the fence between this life and the next. They wanted to hang onto the wood, but their hands were slipping and their arms were getting tired. Once they could not hold on any longer, I could see it in their eyes. A sense of acceptance. A knowledge that they could let go of their trivial lives here on Earth and accept something more.

“One man that I was taking care of began to cough. He coughed so hard that he spit blood and vomit on my apron. If I had been in my usual mindset, I would have been disgusted, but I simply wiped it off and continued. It did not phase me in the least. That’s the thing about being a doctor during a crisis such as a war—you have to let all of your emotions go so that your patients can’t see them. We used to say that you have to leave all of your emotions ‘at the door.’ There are two basic reasons for this: 1) I think if anyone had held onto their emotions throughout all of this horror, they would have gone insane and 2) You could not let the patient know that you were giving up on them. If someone was terminally ill or had 32 bullet holes in them and you showed in your eyes that they were not going to make it, they would just let go because they knew that it was not worth it to keep on fighting just to stay alive for another few minutes.

“The men that you are with become closer than your brothers. They are the only ones who know exactly what you are going through. They are the only people who can comfort you after losing a patient.

“As often as I can, I go to the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC. I wonder how many of those men died because I couldn’t save them. I wonder how many would still be alive today if I had worked harder, worked faster, or even given a second of my time to let them know that it was going to be okay.”

That story completely hit home for me. Sir C had it harder than I could ever imagine. I had not thought about the men who actually had to deal with us after we got wounded on the battlefield. It must have been horrible to be around people as they were dying. I bet the entire place reeked of death and disease. Maybe my part in the Vietnam War really wasn’t that bad…

Adapted from the story of Doctor Carey Spearman in Spearman, Carey. “The Tet Offensive.” The Soldier’s Story. Ed. Ron Steinman. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2002. 159-162. Book.

Monday, December 7

Because today was Sunday, I went to church with my family. After saying my usual prayer for the men who died in the war, I saw the preacher stand. We had a different preacher this time. I think Father John has an illness or something and he did not want to take the chance of getting any of us sick. Father Ray resembled a man who I had seen earlier in my life. I tried to place where I had seen him before, but I could not remember until he began to talk. His voice brought me back to the Vietnam jungle and I forgot that I was in church. As far as I was concerned, I was fighting for my life as the Vietcong continued to bomb our camp. There was a preacher throughout all of this mess that kept me sane. While we fought, he gave out Communion and gave short sermons to inspire us. Without him, I would not have made it. He gave the soldiers a reminder that there was something more than our lives on Earth. For once, we knew what we were fighting for.

It was that same battle that I saw men buried alive. We had bunkers that we dug into the sand and the dirt. They protected us from the mortars, (well, they were better than nothing, I guess. They really didn’t do much-- unless one counts an increase in morale. Looking back, I guess they did the same thing that the preacher did for us). We thought the bunkers were perfectly stable… until the rain hit. We had non-stop rain for a whole month. I guess it was monsoon season in Vietnam because it’s not like America where it rains basically once every week. There, they could go months without rain and then one day, WOOSH, it would be the Johnstown Flood all over again and we would get 10 to 15 inches of rain per day. Soaking wet men are not always the most agreeable. Anyway, so there was a ton of rain and we were soaking wet. Well, the bunkers got wet too and sand is not very supportive when it is wet so they collapsed. With men inside! I heard men scream as they were buried under 10 feet of dirt and sand and rocks.

We tried as hard as we could to get them out and we only lost about one or two men in the end. When I say lost in this case, I mean life-wise. After such a traumatic event, there was never any way to repair the mentality of the men. I believe being buried alive is one of the top fears of an American (after public speaking of course). I did not want to leave my buddies because I was afraid I would lose them too. An experience like that bonds men better than anything. The men fighting were not just my best friends, they were my brothers.

While dirt rained down on the men in the bunkers, in the battlefield, bombs and mortars were being hailed upon us by the Vietcong. They were relentless. Not to mention, we were wet! Have I expressed how uncomfortably wet we were? I think my clothes alone gained an extra 10 pounds because of the water.

Adapted from the story of Ray Stubbe in Stubbe, Ray. “The Seige of Khe Sanh.” The Soldiers’ Story. Ed. Ron Steinman. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2002. 93-99. Book.

Sunday, December 6

War is based on a survival mentality. Basically, we are taught to kill the enemy before they kill us. I was painfully reminded of this adage when I heard my grandson, Benjamin, playing his new video game. He is only fifteen. Why is he shooting men in cold blood? I walked into the room and heard the gunshots. Suddenly I flashed back to a battle where I was a machine gun operator because they had run out of men to manage the guns. Constant gunfire pounded in my ears to the point of bursting. I wasn’t even paying attention to where I was shooting because I was scared stiff. I had to kill as many Vietcong as I could before they killed my men and me. Ammunition was flying by the bucket loads because I just fired without aiming sometimes.

Shooting during battle was so different than shooting for practice. When I practiced at the ranges at boot camp, I was shooting at targets. They were made of straw and other materials that had no relation whatsoever with the stuff that humans are made out of. During the battle, however, I shot at real people of flesh and bone. I could see the blood and the guts and the flesh blown off the men by the bullets. I could see their mouths scream in agony as they died. Maybe I couldn’t hear the screams, but I knew that they were screaming out. This was up close and personal.

That mentality never leaves you—shooting hundreds of men a minute. It was that same battle where I almost vomited because I saw the boot of a man lying on the ground. The only problem was that there was a leg still in the boot. I was able to identify the victim because our unit had a special philosophy of wearing three dog tags—one at the waist, one around the neck, and one tied on the laces of our boots.

I still think about the men who died. What did they do when they knew they were doomed to dying? I often wonder what their last words were. Sometimes, I thought about my own death. If I had died on the battlefield, what would I have said? I didn’t have a girlfriend so it’s not like I could have called out to her. My family did not want anything to do with me after I ran off and joined the army. There was no one that would have missed me when I was gone-- no one to attend my funeral and to cry at the sight of my casket. Now that I am older and away from the entire war scene, I think about what would happen if I died today. Now, I know that there would be people at my funeral. My wife and my kids and their kids will always be there for me. I will always have my family. And I know that’s more than I deserve and more than I could ever want.

Adapted from the story of Bill Beck in Beck, Bill. “Battle of the Ia Drang Valley.” The Soldiers’ Story. Ed. Ron Steinman. New York. Barnes and Noble Books, 2002. 71-74. Book.

And George Forrest in Forrest, George. “Battle of the Ia Drang Valley.” The Soldiers’ Story. Ed. Ron Steinman. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2002. 51-53. Book.